


interlude: sam

by pan_ismyhomeboy



Series: Hallelujah [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Blood, M/M, PTSD, Roadtrip to find Bucky, Threat of suicide/self-harm, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 18:05:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1479085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pan_ismyhomeboy/pseuds/pan_ismyhomeboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know what falling apart is like and you know all you can do is sit there and watch. Or, Sam and Steve go on that roadtrip to find Bucky and it's kind of awful for everyone involved.</p><p>Spoilers for Cap 2. Part of a loose series but, as always, can be read as a stand-alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Steve is not well. He hasn’t been for a long time.

For a while after the Triskelion’s collapse he just… disappears. Even if he’s in the same room as you, you can’t always find him. You knows what this is, you’ve seen this before on the faces of too many soldiers over too many years and you think, in tired resignation, it would have been a blessing to everyone involved if Bucky’d had the decency to stay dead. The two of you travel across the country, fleeing DC and chasing a ghost. Steve is quiet and distant, withdrawing so deep there are times he doesn’t respond to your words and he reminds you so much of Riley you catch yourself pulling back from overly familiar touches you haven’t earned yet. If Steve notices (and you know he doesn’t, not this far in his grief) he says nothing, not at the hand brushing over his or the fingers at the nape of his neck, gentle and comforting and buddy, you _know_ what this is, you’ve seen this before, and as much as you know you can’t carry someone else’s baggage for them you almost wish Steve would at least let you try.

You stay in run-down motels that don’t care enough to ask question, always on the ground floor, always with windows cracked and few possessions packed in case you have to flee. (You’ve never been on the run before with your own country in pursuit and rather think you’re over the novelty at this point, all things considered.) Steve insists on taking the floor and you insist on not leaving him alone and neither of you could sleep anyway on a bed that soft and blankets that warm. Neither of you sleep that first night anyway, Steve staring at the mildewy ceiling and talking until his voice is thick and rough from overuse, sorrow a steady counterpoint to his usually steady speech.

After that there are quiet directions and pointed questions when you pour over maps and try to guess where your quarry ran, but Steve doesn’t talk again like he did the first night. You stare and you watch and you’re already cataloging every potentially dangerous object within reach, a sudden fear bursting under your skin as you can’t help but seeing red flag after red flag after fucking red flag. But this is what you were trained to do, to watch your partner’s back and catch them when they fall, and if Steve notices when his straight edge razor goes missing or when you refuse to give up the keys to the car then he says, as always, absolutely nothing.

Steve is not well and you expected this, because it’s always the brightest and strongest who never had support, never had a contingency plan for the emotional fallout of their line of work, and who in the damn world would have thought Captain America needed anything so ugly and commonplace as a suicide watch. You have to push away the surge of righteous anger wanting to come to Steve’s defense as it wants to defend every soldier under your care. You’ve seen how the country treats its veterans and how many careers grind to a halt under the admission of needing help and you know Steve is just the latest in a line of men and women broken in the line of duty. Steve needs _you_ , not your anger right now, and so you acknowledge it and put it back in its box and use it as fuel over the days and weeks it takes for Steve to come back to himself.

Steve comes to you the second night and you push him away, gently, even as it breaks your heart to see the pain and grief etched into every line of his face. You tell him in soft words why this is a bad idea, that you’re not Bucky (and he’s not Riley, they might as well be honest with this) and Steve’s not well. In soft words you explain about emotional displacement because he needs to understand the rejection and that it’s not him, it’s not you, it’s that the entire situation is so FUBAR there’s no way this _couldn’t_ be taking advantage of the other. You hold his hand and wipe his eyes and he whispers apologies over and over until you get him a glass of water and a sleeping pill and hold him until he finally goes to sleep. And after he is asleep you count out a half dozen of the pills and tuck them somewhere safe before flushing the rest. It’s only melatonin (granted the largest dose of melatonin you could find in the drugstore, one that would certainly knock you out within minutes but took nearly half an hour to work on Steve) and it’s only his first dose and its only been a short while since his world went to shit, but you know firsthand what happens when coping mechanisms become crutches and don’t want his brain to forget what it means to make its own sleep without a little pill before bed.

On the third day you put your foot down and insist on real food, and as he’s reluctantly grazing from a Chinese takeout box you put your feet up on the table and tell him about Riley. He looks unfocused and half-listening but you think you know him well enough at this point to tell when he’s only pretending (because really, he _is_ a terrible liar and his heart wouldn’t get broken so damn much if he didn’t always wear it on his sleeve). You talk about what pushed you finally toward counseling and all the things you’ve learned during therapy group, the ugly shape of PTSD and the bumpy road through bereavement. He comes to you again that night but only drops to your side and wraps all limbs around your body and you can’t decide if he’s protecting you or clinging for dear life. It’s not professional but it doesn’t move past this and you don’t push him away, hands on his arms and telling him stories about the stupid shit you and Riley got up to with the rest of your squadron and what it’s like to watch the sunrise from a thousand feet up in the air.

The next day Bucky finds you and everything goes to shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Melatonin is the sleep hormone and can be synthesized in a lab as a sleep aid. Generally it's non-habit-forming but from personal experience your brain can become dependent on it and stop making its own melatonin if you take the pills regularly enough.
> 
> FUBAR is a military acronym for Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition/Repair.


	2. Chapter 2

You’re both on guard, tense and waiting for an attack but Bucky still surprises you both as he drops from above and tackles you to the ground. Even with a gun you’re not a threat anymore without your wings, as much as you’ve tried to keep your body trained after coming home. There’s just no measuring up to superheroes or metahumans or what-the-hell-ever is the politically correct term these days. (You still haven’t started thinking of yourself as a hero even if the 24/7 news cycle clearly has. Captain America’s new partner, of all things. You’re just a man serving your country one more time, even if your country is starting to take some uncomfortably close notice.)

Bucky slams into you like a truck and you’re pretty sure you feel some ribs creak as you both tumble to the ground. The gun is out of reach before you have a chance to grab it. He’s fast, incredibly fast, inhumanly so, and you might have been a match for him with the sky at your back but now you’re just so much dead weight. The part of you that never left service is keeping track of the fight, appreciative of the sheer, cold efficiency in the other man’s movements. He could kill you but he doesn’t, just twists on your arms until your nerves sing and you can’t feel your fingers (what was that move and why can’t you move now?) and then ignores you because you weren’t ever the grand prize anyway.

All this happens in the space of a few heartbeats before the he leaves your prone body like so much unimportant refuse, leaping toward Steve with murder in his eyes.

They collide with all the inevitability of rogue atoms in a supernova, bursts of brutal energy that build and build on themselves until nothing is left to be destroyed. Steve is on the defensive, shield up and head down as he darts just out of the other man’s range. The other man — Bucky, the Winter Soldier, you aren’t even sure you care at this point — is snarling and savage in his attacks, deadly even as haggard and undone as he looks. You still can’t move and you’d think your arms were dislocated if they actually hurt, but instead they’re numb and heavy and you still haven’t caught your breath yet. Still, even though your head is spinning you watch the fight and you can tell Bucky isn’t trying to kill Steve; you’ve been on the receiving end of a Winter Soldier who wants you dead and got permanently grounded (haha, you’d forgotten you make terrible jokes when the world is falling apart — it’s one of the things Riley loved and hated about you in equal measure) for your efforts, and whatever this is it isn’t that. 

At least, that’s what you think until Bucky pulls a knife and feints faster than Steve can block. You watch every last damn inch sink into the meat of his unprotected arm. (Besides Steve’s shield you’re both completely in your civvies because you went after Bucky as soon as you could, no preparation, no plans, just a foolhardy mission stoked by Steve’s own guilt and grief and you should have known better than to let him talk you into this.) There’s an arterial spray and Steve shouts as Bucky rips away the blade and tackles him to the ground.

Now the pain hits, rocketing through your arms from shoulders to fingertips as you push yourself up and grope blindly for the gun. You’re shaking but you’re focused, world narrowing to this one objective and you can (and will) panic later because right now you aren’t (and can’t) think about your pain or Steve’s blood or the fact you’ll never forgive yourself if you lose another partner, and your hand closes around cold metal and you fire. Luck is the only reason your aim isn’t complete shit, the only reason you hit Bucky instead of Steve. You stagger to your feet and fight the way the earth tilts on its axis, ready to fight (to die) but suddenly you’re both alone, miles out into the western Virginia woodlands without anyone knowing where the fuck you are. You didn’t get a good glimpse of the bullet hole before Bucky disappeared like a ghost (and really you should worry about that, you should really worry about not knowing the location of a wounded predator that’s got the taste of blood in its maw) but you hope, you fervently pray that if anything happens to Steve that Bucky dies alone in the goddammed forest and never hurts anyone again.

Then Steve is calling your name and you fall back on your training, hands still shaking as you tend to his wound and buddy that’s a lot of blood. He smiles thinly as you joke and apply pressure to stop the bleeding. Steve’s had worse, Captain America’s had worse, he’s not actually going to bleed out, you tell yourself over and over. (Christ, you’re going to need therapy by the time all this is over.) And then you don’t have to tell yourself that anymore because it’s true, and even though Steve is paler and colder than you’d like he isn’t actively dying and you collapse beside him, breathing hard and holding the gun again.

When he finally rasps out that you have to go after him, you seriously consider stabbing him yourself. You tell him this and he laughs weakly, clutching at your hand as he catches his breath. Maybe you were right, he says. Shut up and pass out already, you reply. For once he listens.

The woods are silent and still, but you keep watch over your friend just the same.


End file.
